Customers Can Save Thousands in Energy Costs, Reduce Environmental Impact with Dell Blade Servers

Round Rock, Texas

* Tests show Dell PowerEdge blade servers outperformed competitors’ blades in energy efficiency and performance-per-watt, regardless of utilization levels1
* Over the course of five years, Dell blades can help customers reduce energy costs by up to $60,000 when compared with similar solutions2
* Energy savings can reduce environmental impacts for customers and the planet
* This is consistent with Dell’s ongoing strategy to eliminate data center inefficiencies through open, capable and affordable IT solutions

Customers in the Virtual Era require technology solutions that provide the right balance of performance, manageability and energy efficiency. Dell today released the findings of a study that demonstrates the company’s PowerEdge M610 blade servers with M1000e enclosure delivers better performance per watt and consumes less energy overall than HP BL460C blade servers with C7000 enclosure and IBM HS22 blade servers with BladeCenter H enclosure1. Dell’s ultra-efficient blades can consume up to 20 percent less power per blade server than identically-configured competitive offerings1 and help provide an ideal platform for environmentally conscious IT managers looking to reduce operating costs and the environmental impact of their data centers.

With energy costs continuing to rise and operating expenses under increased scrutiny, IT managers share a common and pressing problem: how to improve productivity while significantly reducing power and cooling costs. In like-for-like comparisons using the SPECpower_ssj2008 industry standard benchmark, the Dell M1000e blade enclosure fully populated with 16 M610 blade servers demonstrated advantages over fully HP C7000 enclosure with 16 BL460C blade servers and IBM BladeCenter H enclosure with 14 HS22 blade servers in both power draw and performance-per-watt, regardless of utilization levels1.

Computing More While Consuming Less

The energy-efficiency of Dell’s blades demonstrates the company’s commitment to developing the industry’s highest performing blade server solutions while making it easy and more cost-effective for customers to be environmentally conscious. The white paper, available today, compares Dell M1000e enclosure (fully populated with 16 M610 blade servers) against the HP C7000 (fully populated with 16 BL460C G6 blade servers) and the IBM BladeCenter H (fully populated with 14 HS22 blade servers) . The benchmarks revealed:

* All fully populated, the Dell M1000e enclosure achieved up to 15 percent higher performance/watt than the HP C7000 and up to 22 percent higher performance/watt than the IBM BladeCenter H1.
* Despite containing two more blade servers, t he Dell M1000e enclosure used up to 63.6 percent less power at idle than t he IBM BladeCenter H enclosure, both fully populated1.
* In the CPU utilization midrange (40–60 percent), the Dell M1000e enclosure used up to 13–17 percent less power per server than the HP C7000. Similarly, 16 Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers used up to 19-20 percent less power per server than t he IBM BladeCenter H enclosure fully populated with 14 HS22 blade servers1.
* Both fully populated, the Dell M1000e used up to 24 percent less power at idle and up to 13 percent less power at 100 percent CPU utilization than an HP C7000.1

To put these numbers in perspective, consider this scenario. If a customer were to deploy

160 PowerEdge M610 blades in 10 fully populated Dell M1000e chassis versus a 160 blade server solution from HP and 140 blade servers from IBM, over the course of five years they could expect to save up to $60,902.80 when compared with a similar solution from HP and up to $ 20,391.40 when compared with a similar solution from IBM2. These cost savings are before additional capital expense savings that could result from requiring fewer p ower distribution units (PDUs), uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) and other cooling equipment .

The energy saving only on one fully populated Dell M1000e chassis is enough to power a home for one year.

Built on Energy Smart technologies, Dell blade solutions take advantage of thermal design efficiencies, such as ultra-efficient power supplies, dynamic power efficient fans and optimized airflow design that can efficiently cool the chassis to enable outstanding performance with low power consumption. IT managers can also take advantage of power-capping capabilities, allowing users to control energy consumption while helping prevent outages that result from power overloads. The Dell M1000e also delivers one of the industry’s highest levels of efficiency with Platinum-certified power supplies that can support up to 2700W each. In addition, Dell provides built-in power monitoring with every M1000e chassis so users can track energy consumption at any given time.

Quotes

“The adoption of power efficient blade servers is playing a crucial role in enabling organizations to consolidate and manage IT resources while minimizing energy consumption and related costs,” said Steve Brasen, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associations. “By adopting the SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark for its evaluation testing, Dell has ensured reliability in its methodology and can accurately report on providing one of the most energy efficient server platforms available today.”

“Dell understood our challenges running several fast-growing global services,” said Rikard Gillemyr, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Opera Software. “ Utilizing a Dell blade solution, we have been able to make significant savings as a result of improved computing efficiency and reduced energy consumption.”


About Dell
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to its customers and uses that insight to make technology simpler and create innovative solutions that deliver reliable, long-term value. Learn more at www.dell.com.


1 Based on SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark testing performed by Dell labs in July 2010 and reported in a white paper entitled, “Power Efficiency Comparison of Enterprise-Class Blade Servers and Enclosures” http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/BladePowerStudyWhitePaper_08112010_final.pdf, comparing a Dell M1000e enclosure fully populated with 16 M610 blade servers against both the IBM BladeCenter H enclosure fully populated with 14 HS22 blade servers and the Hewlett-Packard C7000 enclosure fully populated with 16 BL460C G6 blade servers. Actual results/performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

2 Based on power draw figures from a Dell Commissioned white paper entitled, “Power Efficiency Comparison of Enterprise-Class Blade Servers and Enclosures” located at http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/BladePowerStudyWhitePaper_08112010_final.pdf and the following cost/usage assumptions: a Dell M1000e enclosure fully populated with 16 M610 blade servers against both the IBM BladeCenter H enclosure fully populated with 14 HS22 blade servers and the Hewlett-Packard C7000 enclosure fully populated with 16 BL460C G6 blade servers. CPU Utilization is assumed to be 70% for all servers and manufacturers. CPU Utilization is assumed to remain constant for 24 hours a day and seven days a week over a three and five year period of time. At the assumed utilization, the energy consumption for the Dell solution is 3359 watts per enclosure. The HP solution consumes 3977 watts per enclosure and the IMB solution consumes 3565.9 watts per enclosure. The assumed cost of power is $0.09/kWHr. The PUE for all solutions was assumed to be 2.5.